The totalitarian arm of the ever-growing government appears to know no limit. In today’s “oh no they didn’t” moment, the US Government’s diet panel has dictated proposed one more oppression of American’s freedom to choose:

On the bright side, the government approves of “lean meat” as compatible with healthy eating. The bill, introduced by Rep. Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, would impose a tax of 1 cent per ounce on soft drinks – including sweetened teas, energy drinks and soda – and candies that are high in sugar and calories.

Furious with the government plan to impose tax on Internet data traffic, thousands of Hungarians rallied in front of the Economy Ministry in Budapest to protect the freedom of the internet from the ‘anti-democratic’ measure.

Tens of thousands gathered in front of the Economy Ministry building on Sunday, urging the politicians to scrap the plan that will see internet service providers (ISPs) pay 150 forints ($0.62) for every gigabyte of data traffic transferred over their networks.

Although the draft suggests that ISPs would be able to offset corporate income tax against the new levy, the protesters believe that eventually the new tax burden will end up pinned on common users. The Association of IT, Telecommunications and Electronics Companies has already said the tax would force them to raise prices, Reuters reports.

Many commentators, including myself, have been sounding the alarm for many years that only a short-sighted society filled with fearful imbeciles would ever grant government tyrannical powers in the name of fighting an overhyped, outside enemy. As has happened countless times in world history, once these powers are granted they are always eventually used against the domestic population. Sometimes it is used to crackdown on dissent, but sometimes it’s used just to earn money and shake down the domestic plebs. It appears the British Broadcasting Corportation (BBC) in Great Britain is now using it simply to collect tax.

Debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will require a wave of haircuts, warns IMF paper

Much of the Western world will require defaults, a savings tax and higher inflation to clear the way for recovery as debt levels reach a 200-year high, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF working paper said debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will require a wave of haircuts, either negotiated 1930s-style write-offs or the standard mix of measures used by the IMF in its “toolkit” for emerging market blow-ups.

Almost a year ago, the French constitutional court ruled against Francois Hollande’s triumphal blast into socialist wealth redistribution, with his proposed 75% tax rate on high earners, and so indefinitely delayed the exodus of the bulk of French high earners (even if some, like Obelix, aka Gerard Depardieu, promptly made their way to the country that has become the land of solace for all oppressed people everywhere, Russia) into more tax-hospitable climes. That delay is now over, when earlier today the same court approved a 75% tax on all those earning over €1 million. The proposal passed after the government modified it to make employers liable for the 75% tax. As BBC reports, the levy will last two years, affecting income earned this year and in 2014.

And with the tax passage, the preparations for an exodus by all high earnings begin, first among the local football teams. Continue reading »

This would be Jerome Cahuzac, the French “budget minister” who was tasked with rooting out tax fraud by his socialist “75% tax or the capitalist pigs win” overlord, and who resigned two weeks ago to avoid “hindering” an investigation into allegations he had a secret Swiss account, all the while maintaining his innocence? Well, he was just exposed as the latest lying Eurocrat politicians.

FORMER FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER SAYS LIED ABOUT BANK ACCOUNT

EX-FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER SAYS HAS HAD THE FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNT FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS

EX-FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER SAYS HAD EU600,000 IN FOREIGN ACCOUNT

EX-FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER APOLOGIZES TO HOLLANDE, AYRAULT

Where did he make the confession?

EX-FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER COMMENTED ON HIS BLOG TODAY

The take home:

EX-FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER SAYS `CAUGHT IN SPIRAL OF LIES’

In other words: just another politician.

But that’s ok: it got serious – he could have gone to jail or been fired in disgrace, so naturally he had to lie.

It was only yesterday that we wrote about comparable problems to those which Russian depositors may (or may not be?) suffering in Cyprus right, this time impacting wealthy Americans and their Swiss bank accounts, where as a result of unprecedented DOJ pressure the local banks will soon breach all client confidentiality and expose all US citizens who still have cash in the former tax haven under the assumption that they are all tax evaders and violators. And in the continuum of creeping wealth taxes which first started in Switzerland, then Cyprus, and soon who knows where else, there was just one question: “The question then is: how many of the oligarchs, Russian or otherwise, who avoided a complete wipe out and total capital controls in Cyprus, will wait to find out if the same fate will befall them in Switzerland? Or Luxembourg? Or Liechtenstein? Or Singapore?” Today we got the answer, and yes it was one of the abovementioned usual suspects. The winner is…. Liechtenstein.

That even former French president Nicolas Sarkozy plans to start a £1 billion private equity fund in London is not news: courtesy of ZIRP and the ongoing global reliquifiication of markets by every central bank as currency warfare goes ballistic, one would have to be seriously unlucky to chase the central planner inflated beta rally and not succeed (one would also have to be very unaware of the difference between nominal and real returns, but since that is most people these days, let’s ignore that). What is news, is that as part of said transfer to the “asset management business” it is none other than the former French president who is next in line to evade Hollande’s millionaire tax by crossing the Channel, and “redomiciling” himself in London.

Culture minister says government is considering making those who own a computer screen but no television pay up

The French government is considering extending the television licence fee to include computer screen owners to boost revenues for public-sector broadcasting operations, the culture minister said on Saturday.

President François Hollande’s Socialist government aims to raise an extra €7.5bn (£6bn) this year through tax rises included in an amended budget bill to be unveiled next week.

Courtesy of the class division SWAT team, we already know all too well that Buffett had a lower tax rate than this secretary. We however have a question: according to just released data, the Obama’s paid $789,674 in taxes in 2011…

OBAMAS PAID 20.5% IN TAXES ON $789,674 IN 2011

From Bloomberg: “President Obama, wife Michelle had adjusted gross income of $789,674 in 2011, paid $162,074 in taxes, according to federal tax returns released by White House.”

Since the European colonial state of southern Bavaria Sachs (formerly known as the insolvent Hellenic Republic) no longer even pretends to be anything less than a pass-thru funding colony of its creditors, said creditors (European banks and various insurance companies) are about to send out the first group of colonial scouts in the form of German tax collectors. Also, since as reported previously, Greece will literally have to collect taxes to fund the Second “bailout package”, which is merely a front for on ongoing Greek bailout of European banks (recall that it is Greece who is partially funding the bailout Escrow Account), said tax collectors will assist their Greek counterparts (who will rather likely miss their quote of becoming 200% more efficient in 2012) in collecting money from Greek citizens to pay off German banks. If in the process a few (or all) bars of gold end up missing, so be it.

More than 160 German financial services executives are willing to come to Greece in order to strengthen the Greek tax mechanism, according to a report to be published in the German magazine ‘Wirtschafts Woche’, which will be released on Monday.

Corporate jets used by billionaires the Duke of Westminster and Lord Ashcroft are among the aircraft to be allocated free “carbon allowances” to offset the cost of a new green tax.

Almost 200 corporate jet owners, from oil company ExxonMobil to Starbucks and Iceland Foods, will be awarded free permits to compensate them for the new expense of Europe’s carbon trading scheme for aircraft.Continue reading »

Edwin talks about this book, how it came to be and the new editions. Edwin explains the role that the gold commission hearings and Ron Paul played. He also says how important and urgent monetary reform is for the United States and how the best chance of reform comes at the state level.

They discuss constitutional money in the USA and the authority of states to use gold and silver as legal tender, as well as legal precedent from the Supreme Court. He talks about how several states are contemplating legislation to allow gold and silver as alternative currencies.

Edwin explains the Treasury’s legal obligation to maintain parity between all forms of US currency, about Roosevelt’s gold seizure, the gold reserve act and the abolition of the gold clause. Edwin and James talk about the need for insurance against a currency collapse and how alternative currencies could play that role. They discuss the stark choice that follows a currency collapse: How the US reacted after the collapse of the Continental Dollar by enshrining sound money in the Constitution vs. how Weimar Germany drifted towards National Socialism.

He explains how US states have the legal duty and authority to carry out monetary reform. Given the deadlock in Washington, they must take the initiative to prepare for the coming crisis. Edwin and James also stress the need for a rational currency system which allows for economic calculation, and decry the current fiat, politically driven, irrational monetary system as incompatible with the free market, and a focus of financial instability.

They both talk about the current lack of financial education, and liken the alternative currency initiatives by state legislatures to building lifeboats for the Titanic that is the US dollar. They also talk about the different things that can be done to prepare for the impending collapse of the dollar. They also return to the Continental Dollar and how America’s founding fathers were able to learn from their mistakes by enshrining sound money in the Constitution and how, with today’s technology, we could do even better.

Read Full Transcript :

James Turk: I’m James Turk. I’m a director of the GoldMoney Foundation. I’m pleased to be here today with Edwin Vieira, the author of Pieces of Eight, which is a book that the GoldMoney Foundation just recently republished. Edwin, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

Edwin Vieira: My pleasure to be here with you, James.

James: Edwin, I can’t tell you how many emails that I’ve received saying great things about the book, Pieces of Eight. I want to start by talking a little bit about that. I remember reading the first edition of it back in 1983, perhaps?

Edwin: That’s right, I think.

James: And it was a great book. And now the new edition, which came out 20 years or so later. What’s the background for Pieces of Eight?

Too Rich to Live? The estate tax is set to come roaring back in January. That sets the stage for a perverse calculus: End it all-or leave a massive bill for your heirs to deal with.

Tim Gruber for The Wall Street Journal

Eugene Sukup, 81, visits the grave of his parents and grandparents at the Hillside Cemetery in Sheffield, Iowa.

It has come to this: Congress, quite by accident, is incentivizing death.

When the Senate allowed the estate tax to lapse at the end of last year, it encouraged wealthy people near death’s door to stay alive until Jan. 1 so they could spare their heirs a 45% tax hit.

Now the situation has reversed: If Congress doesn’t change the law soon-and many experts think it won’t-the estate tax will come roaring back in 2011.

Not only will the top rate jump to 55%, but the exemption will shrink from $3.5 million per individual in 2009 to just $1 million in 2011, potentially affecting eight times as many taxpayers.

The math is ugly: On a $5 million estate, the tax consequence of dying a minute after midnight on Jan. 1, 2011 rather than two minutes earlier could be more than $2 million; on a $15 million estate, the difference could be about $8 million.

Of course, there is a “death incentive” whenever Congress raises the estate tax. But it hasn’t happened in decades; the top rate has held steady or fallen since 1942, according to tax historian Joseph Thorndike of Tax Analysts, a nonprofit group. In fact, the jump from zero to 55% would be “the largest increase in a major tax that we’ve ever seen,” Mr. Thorndike says.

That possibility presents a bizarre menu of options for wealthy older people-and their heirs. Estate planning was never cheerful, but now it is getting downright macabre, at least for the tax averse. Continue reading »

This tax season will be kind to Bank of America and Wells Fargo: It appears that neither bank will have to pay federal income taxes for 2009.

Bank of America probably won’t pay federal taxes because it lost money in the U.S. for the year. Wells Fargo was profitable, but can write down its tax bill because of losses at Wachovia, which it rescued from a near collapse. Continue reading »

Half a billion dollars’ worth of refund checks were put on hold last Friday, and state beancounters won’t start sending you your money until at least April 1.

“I apologize that we had to do this. I hope it serves notice on the public of how serious our financial situation is,” Gov. David Paterson said.

Several hundred thousand New York taxpayers will be affected with most getting an average refund of $1,000. People who filed in late February and early March might have to wait as long as six weeks till the checks are in the mail.

The governor said the move was unavoidable. He’s also planning to withhold $1.5 billion in school payments and aid to local governments.Continue reading »